Global mobile data traffic growth is projected to grow at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 53% from 2015 to 2020.Cisco found that in 2015, 3.7 (EB) Exabytes of data per month were used in 2015, with 30.6 EB per month projected for 2020. This represents an 8-fold increase from 2015 to 2020.

Smartphones/Phablets will continue dominating mobile data traffic while M2M (Machine-to-Machine) will gain share by 2020. Cisco predicts that global mobile devices increase from 76% to 81% in the forecast period, with the biggest percentage gain projected from M2M, increasing from 3% in 2015 top 7% in 2020.

Global mobile users will grow from 65% (4.8B) in 2015 to 70% (5.5B) of the world’s population by 2020. The Middle East & Africa leads all global regions with a 4.4% CAGR through 2020, followed by Asia-Pacific with 3% growth and Latin America with 1.6%. The following graphic breaks out mobile growth between 2015 and 2020 along with CAGRs. Cisco also found that average mobile speed will more than triple from 2.0 Mbps (2015) to 6.5 Mbps (2020).

Smart mobile devices and connections are projected to represent 72% of total mobile devices and connections by 2020—up from 36% in 2015. Smart devices are also forecasted to generate 98% of mobile data traffic by 2020. Cisco also found that from the individual device standpoint, smartphones will be 81% of global mobile traffic by 2020, increasing from 76% in 2015.

By 2020, Machine-to-Machine (M2M) connections will represent 26.4% of mobile-connected devices—up from 7.7% in 2015. M2M refers to applications that enable wireless and wired systems to communicate with other devices of the same ability. Examples include GPS/navigation, asset tracking, utility meters, security/surveillance video, healthcare monitoring, and the myriad of devices included in the Internet of Things (IoT). Cisco forecasts that M2M connections will generate 6.7% of total mobile traffic—up from 2.7% in 2015.